The New Ulm Journal has provided video from last night’s fundraiser for congressional candidate Mike Parry, who makes the assertion that Gov. Mark Dayton “popped 15 or 16 pills” during some unspecified negotiation session.

It’s at the 2:40 mark.

The assertion didn’t seem to have much impact on the audience. Note the woman in the front row who keeps checking her smartphone.

About the blogger

Bob Collins has been with Minnesota Public Radio since 1992, emigrating to Minnesota from Massachusetts. He was senior editor of news in the ’90s, ran MPR’s political unit, created the MPR News regional website, invented the popular Select A Candidate, started several blogs, and every day laments that his Minnesota Fantasy Legislature project never caught on.

NewsCut is a blog featuring observations about the news. It provides a forum for an online discussion and debate about events that might not typically make the front page. NewsCut posts are not news stories.

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Could have been Tic-Tacs.Could have been Mentos. Could have been vitamins. But now the assertion is ‘out there’ that Governor Dayton is a pill popping,scary dude. It’ll get picked up on someone’s blog, amplified, dispersed, intensified. Just wow.

linda

How about running a campaign on political differences and how YOU would be different from your opponent. Mr. Parry either couldn’t find any differences to make comparisons or he had no ideas on how things could be different. There is going to be a day when these wreckless allegations have to be substantiated and persons making them are held accountable.

BJ

I think the pills were Ecstasy. Listening to Parry talk would make me want to take something.

Peter

Parry probably thought since Harry Reid does it about Mitt Romney’s tax returns, it was probably okay to do it about Dayton. Disgusting in both cases, and in the veins of “Have you stopped beating your wife?”

Parry should stick to talking about his opponent and what he’d do differently, because no matter what happens in November, Parry won’t be working with Dayton.

Matt B

Josh Moniz tweeted later on that the Editor made the call to leave that comment out of the main story to make the statement its own story later. Here’s the tweet

Bob Collins

Interesting. I didn’t realize you can use a fact in only one story. :*)

Andrew Richner

Republicans can’t stand that a lot of Dayton’s credit with the electorate comes from the fact that he did something actually brave when he put his career on the line to publicly admit to his alcoholism and depression.

Plenty of politicians have been quietly treated for similar issues, but Dayton chose to use his prominence to be a role model and an example and to make the tough call to tell the world about his problems and accept the political liability (which arguably was the motivation for him being barred from the convention in Duluth).

This is such a powerful narrative that Republicans continually try to undermine it with “once an abuser, always an abuser,” and he’s “crazy” rhetoric that is ridiculously insensitive to people suffering from the same issues Dayton overcame publicly.

Talking about alleged pill-popping during private meetings would be a little like if FDR’s opponents had revealed that he in fact used a wheelchair when out of the public eye. Overcoming disabilities is a strength, not a sign of weakness or ineffectiveness.

It dawned on me several months ago that Republicans are bullies. This is yet another example of Republican bullying. They show that they are bullies every other time they open their mouths and with every other action they take (maybe even more often than that). It should not surprise us that they continually oppose anti-bullying legislation and that we hear reports like the one about Romney bullying a classmate. It’s their main way of operating in the world. Ridiculing people, taunting political opponents and constituents alike, doing whatever they can to hurt and even eliminate their opponents. They are the very definition of bullying.

Mark

Parry has just lost this election….. It is 2012, we now consider overcoming a disability commendable – he talks like it is 1940 still. Shame on him.